Now I recall why I don't write travel diaries, they get long, but they can be fun to look back on.

If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium.
If it's Wednesday, this must be Rome.
If it's Thursday, this must be Montrose.
Oh, how I want to go home...

This page is quite long actually and you can read what you have the patience for, but the most interesting part to me was the last section about Sintra, Spain. It was unique.

In a nutshell, most of the ship food was mediocre, though you could get some good food with a bit of strategy. The Reubens at Cagney's were just great. Too mch food, so don't over eat. We also lucked out with the restaurant we found in Rome right next to where we were staying. Due to an accident, we got very premium service on the ship, which was a nice thing at times.

As for the tours, ... all were good exercise. They run you around and do want to tell you the stories about where you are. These areas were all new to me, so it was great, exhausting, but great. We both especially loved Spain and Portugal.

The weather for the trip was unusually fantastic, mostly sunny and low 70's, though the stops changed some to avoid weather in southern France and northern Italy. We are definitly not ready for the chill here back home.

I don't remember exactly. I think it was around last May that I had told Debbie we should take some kind of cruise, probably to Europe for a week. After she got her own admin messes cleaned up, she started looking and found that the Norwegian (NCL) Viva was doing an 11 day Mediterranean cruise in November (after kids were back in school,. priority) for just a bit more than the 7 day cruises. We learned before that cruising operated like horse trading in Kansas City. Anything was possible and you have to look for the opportunities. We knew not to take the standard small room, it's just uncomfortable and will cost you sleep, something precious to Deb and I. We also knew that we didn’t need something the size of the room we got on the Caribbean cruise. So she picked a family balcony, one size up from basic. You definitely want that balcony. Once you call them, it's like many businesses, you are going to get endless offers... for just about everything related to the cruise and cruise related from... everyone. We did take their credit card, which came with a 3% discount on everything cruise related as well as $400 credit for tours. We saw the planned itinerary and started researching the stops and tours. Ship tours are nice because they are often the less expensive ones and you are pretty much guaranteed to not get left behind. 

Where this gets interesting is while we did have a room larger than basic, we were eying upgrading so when they sent an email saying we could bid on a larger room, we paid attention. Nah, it was a going to be around $1400 and you couldn't pick your room. Deb did repeatedly go to the site "incognito" see what was still available and what prices were. At one point, she called customer service to ask to them and was offered an upgrade for $400. For 11 days, that's nothing and it was some kind of suite with a separate sleeping room, so she jumped on it. We had no idea... See, if you if you want to go on a cruise and feel you haven't spent enough money already or just want to brag, the back of the ship is what they call the "Haven", sort of first class. Private elevators, exclusive dining area, butler service, boarding privileges (nice), concierge service, etc. Whatever they can come up with that makes it different. Very expensive and really, only of so much real benefit. Our suite was just in front of that area. Notice the word "suite". To make it short, that "suite" designation gave us almost all the perks and privileges of the Haven without the price, even if we couldn't go in that area of the ship. We even had a butler, Gary. 

The plan then was to fly to Lisbon and catch a connection to Rome. We would stay a couple days there to recover and see the Eternal City, something I had actually wanted to do for a while. The boat would take us back to Lisbon, where we would stay a couple days and then fly back home. Most of this page is the daily notes that I took on my phone and emailed back daily.

It was getting cooler here, but was warmer than expected in mid November... still a bit chill though. One concern was the disastrous flooding that had occurred in Valencia Spain. We didn't plan to go there, but would be near it. The drive to Dulles airport for an international flight sucks but our best option seemed to be reserving parking in a remote lot. We finally were on TAP, the Portuguese airline.

It was a long flight from Dulles airport to Lisbon. We got to Lisbon a little bit late, so they rushed us through customs there. (We never had to go through customs again. It's all EU.) Then another three hours to get to Rome. Neither Debbie or I slept much to speak of on the night flight. Note to self, bring a couple water bottles on that airline (Same on flight back, and hot). Met mega maga. Sort of scary. The terminal we had to go through in Lisbon to get to the Rome flight, seemed endless.

The ride from the airport to the hotel was uneventful. The hotel was called Colosseum Corner. We are just a little bit up from the Colosseum itself. Down the block is a little bit of a park or something that overlooks the Colosseum. We are on the opposite end of the Colosseum from Constantine gate. We completely passed out when we got there. We had an excellent dinner at the small restaurant on the corner. (We went back a number of times and considered it the best eating we found in Rome. Very  convenient.) We are going to make this an early night. There’s a beautiful full moon out, very bright. The room we have is sort of Euro stylish, but I’ve been in more practical room than this. It’s just for three days. Now it’s time to relax. This is November 15, 2024.

I wore headphones the whole flight, I’m not sure the noise canceling functionality was working, but they did block some of the engine noise, which was nice and less tiring.

We went for breakfast at the hotel recommended restaurant where we were supposed to get free breakfast. We’re going to look for somewhere else to get breakfast. It was not necessarily worth the free price.

We both slept pretty well. That’s not surprising because we were both trashed, but considering the jet lag and long day, we really needed it.

The plan was to go to the Vatican and then to take a golf cart ride tour of the city.
We had no trouble getting a taxi to Vatican City, but we were little early and had to wait a while for our tour group. There were six people in the group and the guide's name was Lucy. We picked up earphones so that we could hear her.

The tour we took was supposed to skip the lines which turned out to be very good actually. We went through a number of rooms with giant paintings and sculpture after sculpture of every imaginable style. A museum is where you collect the masterpieces that you’ve either commissioned, bought or stolen. We were able to go through the map room that has giant maps on the walls. I’m not sure what year. That was pretty impressive and apparently sort of unique at the time for the blue color used for the ocean there. They had lot of trouble with that but used ground lapis for the bloe color. Inside and outside, there’s just an amazing number sculptures.

Note for the Vatican tour, we met a couple in our group that were from North Dakota and another group that was from Los Angeles. 

We were supposed to go in the Sistine Chapel, where there was no talking or photography. It was planned for us to be in there for 15 minutes before meeting the guide again to leave. We did skip a significant line. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of the Sistine chapel, so I wondered what it would look like in person. It was much more vivid than any pictures. I’ve seen also the painting behind the altar that Michelangelo did 30 years after the ceiling, was huge and extremely impressive painting of the last judgment. I guess it lived up to its reputation.

We ended up in a long hallway with a half circle type ceiling and it had just one painting after another including on the ceiling so those paintings are curved. There was a room full of giant tapestries were actually fairly interesting because of how detailed they were. I think they got a  discount on marble.

Again we skipped the line getting into Saint Peter‘s Basilica. I wasn’t as familiar with that and to say it was impressive does not do it justice. Just the marble columns through it were more spectacular than anything I’ve seen in any museum. As Lucy said, it was a collection of masterpieces by the masters. The altar cover was 18 feet high, rather massive and made of bronze by Bernini. There was other sculptures by him, but it was pretty hard to differentiate because there was so many sculptures. Some of them were at least 20 feet tall. The alter itself was not spectacular. Oh, I missed getting the picture of the medallion behind the alter that Bernini made. At one point, the bishop and his entourage went through. Cardinal. Correct that was the cardinal. He wasn’t ready to redcoat though. What else did we see in there? The dome of Saint Peters Cathedral is the largest in the world and pretty incredible looking. There were about three other dome, though that were comparable if not quite as big.

Looking at the ceilings as we went through the museum, I can tell where some of the libraries at University of California Berkeley got their ideas. It’s hard to believe just how many sculptures there were. A lot of them were actually pagan guys as they called them. I could recognize Mercury and some others that were very much pre-Christianity.

I would dare say that any dignitaries visiting would have been pretty much dazzled by the display inside the cathedral. I’m not sure if it was gaudy or over the top or just pretty magnificent.
We were wandering out the main road out of the Vatican looking at the different stores. Nothing in the souvenir shop tempted me, not even the pope doll. Debbie noticed a taxi cab coming up that was empty so we flagged them down which saved effort one getting out of the Vatican to get one.

We got back to the hotel and went to the corner restaurant again. Debbie got pizza, which had some great fresh tomato sauce on it probably Romano tomatoes. I got a pasta with pesto on it and that was extremely good.

Both of us slept pretty good for about an hour before we took off for the next tour. Nicely the golf cart picked us up at the hotel. Our guide, Georgia, seemed like a very nice young lady. She decided that we just wanted to have fun so she took us everywhere. At one point, we went down the Apian Way, which is now a fairly busy street here, though still only two lane. We went through one of the city gates, that was an original. I wasn’t really aware that Rome had been a walled city, but in hindsight, I should’ve guessed all cities back then were walled. Now the Roman architecture was those small bricks probably 8 inches long, 3.5 inches wide and an inch or 1.25 inches high, put together with Roman cement. Repairs and updates were done with pretty much the same size. Bricks and similar bricks are used in a lot of the modern buildings. In the old walls, there are bushes growing in places. These are related to olives and actually bear olives, that are good eat. We went past the Parthenon, but it was getting late. We went through the Jewish ghetto. The streets were crowded with tourists, including Italian tourists visiting the city on the weekend. After going through a bunch of allys it seemed, Georgia parked the golf cart and told us to go few blocks further to the Trevia fountain. It was pretty busy. The fountain had been drained for refurbishing for next year‘s jubilee. There was a platform across it and if you wanted to wait in line for a while, you could walk across it. Debbie and I took a few pictures from front but did not try to get onto the walkway. Everywhere downtown, especially there, the streets are lined with small shops and lots of people. Coming back, I took a bit of a wrong turn, which we discovered after probably 150 yards, but I think I can say I was lost in Rome. We found the right street to get back to the golf cart and passed the fruit seller I’d seen earlier. It was great looking fruit fruit though it’s a little bit expensive so I got a glass full of pineapple chunks. That was good.

I had mentioned that I wanted to get coffee. So we stopped where we could cross the street to a  coffee shop that Georgie liked. It was more of a bakery and absolutely puts anything in America to shame. The variety and appearance of the pastries was amazing. I bought five items for later and learned something new about ordering coffee. If you just ask for coffee, you’re going to get espresso in a little cup. If you want more, you should ask for American coffee. I enjoy coffee in Europe much more than in the US. Who knows, maybe I’m going to try some espresso. It actually pretty bitter, but I had put some Stevia into a sugar bag I had emptied. Stevia can cure any bitter taste. She took us a lot of places many I didn't know at the time and can’t remember. She took us to a park overlooking the city, which was actually P_alentine Hill. I had no idea, but the view was nice. She then brought us back to the hotel. Debbie and I agreed with it was a somewhat chaotic trip, part of which was what made it really fun. All in all it was. great way to spend an afternoon and early evening.

At one point, she had stopped for us to go into a shop where I bought some wine to drink and to bring onto the boat. (It turned out the white wine was gastly tasting.) We found some pasta like we’ve never seen before so we took that. (It made it home intact.) Probably the most useful souvenir will find. I did get some magnets.

We went back to the restaurant at the corner. The funny thing was the Caesar salad. I ordered the other day came with chicken and was one of the best meals I’ve had recently. So I ordered it again tonight and it wasn’t nearly as good. We did have the pastries for dessert. Now, hopefully we get some sleep. 

More details about the golf cart ride with Georgio.

About 4:30 in the afternoon we got to what was apparently a 13th century church. It was very empty of pews, etc. Above the entry door was wooden carved panels, which apparently are the earliest depiction in wood of Christian habits and practices and beliefs. Most of the  Church was from the 13th century though. There was a bathtub about 10 feet long of stone. Above it was a lions head in a stone circle that the water came out of for the bathtub. We went on some into an area that had been a rich man's villa but was basically now a park. There was every time period of construction there. It was also the place where there’s an optical illusion apparently. If you look out at the dome of Saint Peter‘s Basilica, it looks quite large. But if you get to the edge of the park overlooking the city, closer actually, the Basilica Dome looks much smaller from there. It had a real good view over the city.

Also, while traveling with Giorgio in the golf cart, I said that a wanted coffee. She took us to a place she could park and across the street with a bakery shop. We went there and I have never seen. bakery like that. It was an incredible variety and a lot of them were little pieces of art. I ordered five small pastries. The clerk there spoke very good English, the guy making the coffee didn’t. I didn’t really realize that coffee here means espresso rather than ordering American coffee. So I got a little thimble full of coffee to go that was rather bitter, but quite tasty. I’m carrying a small package of Stevia with me as I go, which has served me quite well when I’ve been ordering coffee. Now, though I do know to come Order Café Americana.

Our room had a little coffee maker in it that uses miniature pods much smaller than a Keurig coffee maker. It has two settings. One is for basically espresso. The other setting gives about a half a cup of coffee, so you run it twice for a full cup.

Some other places we went were a store to get me some wine. It was on. side street from a little alley basically. We picked up two bottles. A red wine for me and a bottle of Pinot Grigio for Debbie. They had really intriguing looking pasta so we got a bag of that. She got a white chocolate bar and I got a bar of dark chocolate with lemon and ginger. That has been really interesting.
Well after dark, we ended up going up on a hill and into a park between the auto barriers and just barely fit. I didn’t know where it was. but there was. couple cafés up there and there was mostly park. There was some good views. There was an incredible full moon. What I didn’t realize was that we were on top of Palentine Hill, which is above the Colosseum.

I’m afraid we kept Giorgio about a half hour longer than we were supposed to so we tipped her well. We got back to the room and I wanted to try the red wine that I was going to open here. It really didn’t taste that good. I left it open overnight and the next morning had a tiny taste of it. Then it was pretty good.

One thing about this is we were at great risk from dehydration. Were used to having more water available. I think we’ve got that licked now.

Debbie says the shower sucks. You have to wait a while for the warm water. The bottom of it slippery enough that you could fall through the glass enclosure quite easily. It’s way too tall for her in the bathroom. Because it’s so tall, she couldn’t get the water where she wanted on her back and legs.

Last night on two occasions, a whole bunch of fireworks went off. It sounded like strings about 50 firecrackers. This was around 10 o’clock. I didn’t hear it, but she said there was a lot of sirens at one point and some other noises going on. 

The tour for today was the Colosseum. We were supposed to be in a small group that went underground. It turned out that where we were supposed to meet at the metro station that was just a little ways from the hotel room. We stopped on the way where we got the free breakfast yesterday that we really didn’t like. Today we simply ordered some of the pastries they had, which made. great breakfast. We then continued on and met the tour group, but we are quite early so we went to another nearby café and had coffee. I had another croissant. They may be a handful, but they’re mostly air.

We finally went down the hill to the Colosseum, which even at 8 o’clock in the morning with something of a zoo. We got headphones and followed the guide down some stairs into the underground of the Colosseum. This area had only been accessible for a few years. All the construction is basically Keystone. They didn’t use concrete to hold the blocks together, though some of the blocks had holes in them where metal bars held them together at times. Underneath the Colosseum is extremely complicated passageways. These have only bee dug out in the past few decadses. We stopped at the passageway that went to the gladiator school. That had a very interesting film depicting a referee, and a gladiator coming from the school to the Colosseum. They have a reproduction of one of the elevators that lifted things into the arena itself. There were a few manikins with gladiator outfits. Looking at the construction is very interesting. Some of it from the early part, apparently was local volcanic rock. You could see that fairly easily.  Most of the Colosseum have been built, though of, I think, marble that had come from a little bit further away. There was a lot of the brick and concrete construction that’s typical around here. The guide told us a lot of things of the history as far as it was known. Quite a lot wasn’t.

Eventually, we went up higher above the two levels underground and walked around the main part of the Colosseum, where the spectators were. There were Christian influences vi9sible. Over the many hundredth of years it was there the Colosseum had been used for a lot of things, including shops and works areas and even apparently some farming had been done in it. It’s size is pretty unbelievable. For that kind of construction with rock it needed to be fairly massive to be stable. That in turn made it pretty darn durable. A lot of it was worn down by the centuries, but a whole a lot of it just is not touched by time. I should say it’s not worn down much by time. There was a lot of other places you could see that were just worn down. Getting out was quite the challenge and the crowds at that point were huge. Especially the crowd of people waiting to get in. We decided it was a very, very good tour that we were really glad we took. 

On the way out, we passed Constantine’s arch, which is completely enclosed in scaffolding. It turns out there was another arch about a quarter mile away towards the road to the Palentine Hill. That was part of the tour tickets to go up it, but we decided not to and that was when Debbie mentioned that we’ve been up there the night before with Georgio. It was probably nicer at night and it wasn’t crowded. We eventually made our way to the stairs that went up basically across the street, one block below our hotel. We went back to the restaurant at the corner where we’ve been eating and had. pretty good lunch.

As time goes on, we get amused by looking at other restaurants. We really can’t seem to beat this one. It mostly does cater to the locals because it’s just one block beyond where the Colosseum crowd would be. The menu is really good and the food has been very very good as well. We’ve looked at other places in this area and just have seen no reason to go to another restaurant. You can easily accidentally order far more food than you can eat. The salami plate was huge. We’re going to go back there for dinner tonight and very likely for breakfast in the morning. The price is here are about 2/3 of what they would be in the US. It’s a little scary thinking about how high the prices are back in the states.
We actually met a very interesting Australian couple that we were talking with some at the restaurant. At the Colosseum tour, we met two groups of people that will be on the ship with us. It will be interested if we actually meet them on the ship.

We have seen some street vendors mostly selling selfie sticks and battery packs. I suspect those battery packs are not real high-quality. There have been a few vendors doing the thing of trying to sell or give you a bracelet, but mostly that has not been any big deal. You have to start feel sorry for them in a way because they really are the flotsam of civilization. It’s hard to guess what part of the European Union or beyond that they came from, but you can be pretty sure they’re not what you would call educated.

Debbie got two more magnets on the stairway above the Colosseum for a single euro apiece. The ones I got at the Vatican were three for five euros.

We took our time getting out of Rome. The driver took us down all these cobblestone roads that seem like alleys. These are like the roads that Giorgio took us down in the golf cart. I guess it’s the best way to get through Rome at times. Maybe it avoids traffic.

In way, is it a lot like California. Both are Mediterranean, but it’s greener here so it must get more rain.

The trip to the ship was over an hour. Though there wasn’t much traffic really. We had priority boarding which got us on board a little faster.  Having the two rooms, the suite was pretty big. I passed out for an hour or so, but Debbie didn’t really sleep much. I don’t remember what dinner was so it must not have been very impressive.


That little red spot back there is where our cabin was.

I think I've always been intrigued by the name "Amalphi" ever since I watched The Last Unicorn. It was much later than that that I found out it was the name of a place. Sort of a Mediterranean Big Sur.

We got up very early for our tour to the Amalfi coast and. The bus held about 16 people, so that was comfortable. The tour guide is very knowledgeable. Right now we are in Positano, which is apparently the center of lemon production. Mostly it’s the lemon peels that are used for making liquor. I bought a little bottle of it. This is Lemoncello. Very expensive here in this tourist town of Positano. We had a couple small bakery items. The Amalfi coast is really impressive, partly I guess it’s the fact that it’s all cliffs and people seem to live here somehow. Gas was €1.87 per liter here. We walked down to the older part of the village. A lot of it wasn’t open because this isn’t high season. That’s nice because apparently it’s very crowded usually and the roads are impossible. Right now it’s not very crowded or busy. It’s like the Venice Beach of the area. Very good for tourists. Looking in the shops was fun. Our primary purchase, as everywhere we stopped, was referigator magnets. Really, I want to take a shot of this lemon liquor they make. The stop here was one hour. We didn’t walk all the way down to the water because then you have to walk up again. Very interesting stuff in the shops, mostly women oriented and fashions. I’m writing this while waiting for the bus. 

After we left Positano, we headed back up the Amalfi coast for lunch at Sorrento. While we were eating in the café, a very heavy rain started falling. We moved in under the cover, just a little bit more, but it really wasn’t a problem. By the end of lunch, the rain had largely stopped. We wandered down this small street where we were told with the shop that was a good place to get olive oil. We did pick up a small can of extra-virgin olive oil. What our guide had suggested was that we go down this one alleyway and come back on that street. We were little short on time so instead of going down the street and coming back in the alleyway we went down the alleyway a bit. I don’t recall what we were looking for there, it was something. There are lots and lots of small shops and boutiques selling accessories and fashion. If you’re into shopping, it probably would’ve been a lot of fun. The sightseeing was very good though.

We headed back on the bus towards Naples. Most people on the bus were drowsing. We went through the white mountains and underneath Vesuvius. Apparently, Vesuvius is about. miles high now and there’s a canyon in the middle. Apparently, before the 79 BC (?) eruption that burried Pompeii, the mountain was much taller and very sharp. The eruption removed a lot of the mountain and left that canyon in the middle.

We got to Pompeii, which took. fair walk from the bus. Amazingly you see these rocks with eyelets in them that were where ships tied up at the port. Now the ocean is more than a mile away. It’s a bit of a walk up the main road into Pompeii. I was rather shocked to hear that Pompeii and Herculinium are the only existing Roman towns. They were protected by the volcano covering them. Apparently all the rest of the Roman towns were dismantled by the barbarians that followed the fall of Rome around 400 A.D.

In ways, it’s not hard to picture with the town look like with market stalls and homes. In other ways, it can be difficult because the public buildings were rather large and it was hard to tell how they were laid out and their function. Near the entrance was the “police station“ where apparently during the eruption a lot of people had gone, hoping for safety. No luck there though.

Houses there tended to be for the wealthy in that part of town and as you came in ther would be a mosaic that basically showed off the wealth of the owner, inviting businessman. Inside that was always a small pool that was for collecting rainwater. I wasn’t completely clear on how they worked. In places, there was still plaster, mostly about an inch and a quarter thick, that would’ve been painted over. There was a lot of Greek influence and a lot of columns. The guide pointed out that some of the rock used was volcanic rock. Some of it was in marble that would’ve been imported. There was pink marble in a ... something, that showed it had been imported from. distance. There was. statue of a centuer, basically, upon a platform. There were other rather significant streets. Mostly they were paved with these black stone pavers that were generally a foot square but can be various sizes. The walls constructing it were an interesting combination of the typical Roman tiles and all kinds of different rocks, held together with Roman cement. All in all, the area was pretty green for being the end of summer.

We returned to the bus, which was a bit of a walk again. It had rained towards the end of our visit, but it wasn’t really heavy at any point. I found out the umbrella carried was broken and wouldn’t open. Oh well.

Now the ship itinerary had changed. We were not going to go to Florence, Nice, or Marseille, because they were having some thunderstorms and very heavy winds. This meant that the departure of the ship was delayed by an hour or so, which made it convenient that the tour had actually not been rushed much. The boat schedule changed we were going to Sicily. We were going to have a day at sea, and we were going to have an extra day in Barcelona.

Overall, Debbie and I were both exhausted. We made it to dinner at the buffet. I had some pork roast that I thought was good and Debbie had some spaghetti. I thought it was OK. Debbie‘s concern at any buffet apparently is that there could be mushrooms she doesn’t know about. As you go into the buffet. they have someone there who gives you a bit of a squirt of an alcohol spray for your hands. That makes sense because clearly there’s no place on the boat more appropriate for spreading diseases. Hopefully we don’t get any of that. Both Debbie and I slept long.

We pulled into Sicily about dawn. We went to Cagney’s for breakfast at about 8 o’clock. The food took forever to get here and wasn’t very good. We went up to the buffet and did a lot better.
Our plan is to take it very easy and go into the city market area to wander around for a couple hours. We really have no other plans for that. Debbie already found something to do for our new open day in Barcelona. The room service in our suite is actually really good. We did open the champagne last night. 

We got a pretty late start, after our really lame breakfast. After we got off the ship to the docks, someone was trying to get us to take a horse ride, that is a horse and buggy ride. It was €120 but he lowered it to €100. We just were not too sure and we weren’t sure how it would do on Debbie‘s back. It was a question of where could a horse go in that amount of time? So somebody else was trying to get us to take a taxi ride in his truck or I mean car. He said €100 but knocked it down to €80. We usually seem to enjoy taxi rides. This one was no different. Fairly early on we passed the Bank of Italy, which he pointed out. We both said we wanted a picture of it because Bank of Italy is what became Bank of America in the US. So he turned around in the middle of the street with a fair amount of traffic. We got our pictures and he turned around again more in the middle of the block. This guy was a taxi driver. After the whole trip, Debbie and I agreed he was an asshole taxi driver, but he certainly did get where he was going. We went past a couple opera houses, one of which he said was the biggest in Europe. We went down a whole lot of side streets between apartments. This is a city where on any of the streets the street level floor is devoted to various stores with the residentiasl above. A lot of fashion stores were along here. Saw a fair amount of statues, including a statue of Garibaldi. I would’ve gotten, picture but we were gone. Obviously there’s a lot of churches. I’m not sure where we went because we were just zipping around like a taxi driver wanted to get somewhere real fast. We had said we wanted to stop at the market for 10 or 15 minutes. He took us to a market and parked on the side street saying that we should show up in about 10 minutes. Debbie and I wandered down this street that had every kind of shop imaginable. There was a lot of foods available in different stands. Some of it looked like very strange Italian dishes. There was a cheese stall. There was a sausage stall that looked interesting to me, but Debbie certainly wasn’t interested. I tried to find the cherry liquor I’d had on the Amalfi coast trip, but I couldn’t. The market was fascinating. It had enough of a smell to be noticeable, though obviously Debbie noticed it more than me. It was really interesting. This is what a European market is supposed to be I guess. There’s lots of the fabric handbags and fabric products. As we were leaving on the side street was a lonely stand, making orange juice and pomegranate juice. I couldn’t resist getting myself a pomegranate juice. After that, we went zipping around a little bit more and we left off at the boat. We both decided it was fun. We also agreed the taxi driver was an asshole as a driver, nice enough guy, but you wouldn’t want him in front of you on the street. Wouldn’t want him on the street because shortly he would be in front of you no matter how much he had to cut you off. 

Weather report. It was pretty warm in Palermo. I dare say in summer this place is extremely hot. There was a lot of trees through the city. There was also some interesting parks. We saw the equivalent of central Park. There are a fair amount of statues around, mostly the churches. Apparently Vespas grow quite well in this climate. And oddly, the car is mostly seem new, only a few years old. Like elsewhere we’ve been in Italy. The cars are actually very small, but that’s what you need in these kinds of street in traffic.

Today is Friday. Because of Weather, Florence, Morocco, Monaco, Morocco, and Florence stops all got skipped. Thursday was a sea day. So Friday, we went into Barcelona with a Bus tour. We stopped first near a market area and walked up to the Gaudi Cathedral. The cathedral is as impressive as people of said it is. We spent time in a souvenir shop across the street that was actually pretty amazing.

Barcelona is full of statues and monuments and parks. The architecture is from varied to eclectic. there are a lot of scooters around here. Traffic isn’t so bad. The town is just made for walking and bicycling. This is a pretty big city covering a very broad area. We also went up on some hill, where they had the Olympic venues from a previously Olympics. There’s an interesting, huge cableway from the harbor up to the top of the mountain. We understand it was about €120 per person. Mostly it’s what we have seen before, residential buildings (usually 5 stories) with markets on the bottom floor. There’s lots of trees. Very clean city. We saw the bull ring which is supposed to be the third largest in the world after Mexico City and Madrid. We then stopped for an hour in an area of town where we got lunch. It sort of seemed like a health food restaurant. Right near there apparently they were doing some digging and found a Roman village so that was one of the sites to see. We didn’t go in there. Our guide was pretty knowledgeable and kept rattling off history and other features of the city. Over and over again you see monuments with statues. There’s some very significant parks near the harbor is, that include a very large monument to Christopher Columbus. I would assume he’s more popular here than in the United States right now.  Whatever minor bug I’ve got moved into my eye and my left eye was bright red. Very annoyed then it ended up in my nose. I’ve been blowing my nose like crazy. We went back to the ship. Debbie‘s been having some trouble with her leg so we’re limiting our walking a little.  We had dinner in the dining room and Debbie had ordered early so to avoid mushrooms. She had the walleye cod that was actually very good. I ordered some Cajun bacon wrapped shrimp that had never been near the Caribbean. I also had a New York strip steak that was 1/3 gristle. I think I just got lucky on that. We skipped going to Beetlejuice because we were pretty tired.

As it was an unscheduled day in Barcelona, we stayed overnight in the harbor. Again, we had breakfast in the room, which seems to be a better breakfast than most others we have gotten on the ship. We got it together and took the bus to Gaudi Park. That’s where we are right now in the entrance area, which has all kinds of palm trees and pine trees. We are seeing some small green parrots, that have apparently thrived here. After a tour of this park, we’re supposed to go to the cathedral and then get back to the ship about 5 o’clock or 5:30.

[Need to fill in more about Gaudi Park here.]

I  missed today when we went to the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) Basilica. A cathedral is sort of the heart of a political religious entity. A basilica it turns out, is notably a holy site. Both could be the same location, but this was not a cathedral.

We’ve seen the outside the day before. Our tour guide on this day, knew the Basilica well and loved it. He also went on and on about it, which was sort of OK other than that was hard on Debbie standing too long. On the outside is a great deal of detail that tells stories of the holy family. I think you could study that for a long time. Again, there are no straight lines because there are none in nature. There are some fascinating brass doors to enter it. They look like they are covered with leaves, and there are some small animals on them. A salamander is looking into the small window through the door.

We had a fairly good sound system to hear the tour guide. Inside the cathedral is another story. The outside is pretty amazing, but the inside much more so. Cathedrals and churches in general with their spires, try to reach to the heavens. From the outside, the towers of the basilica almost seem just proportionately tall. When you get in the inside, you get a better feel for what Gaudi was trying to accomplish. The pillar is holding up the basilica are extremely tall and then they spread  to the roof, reaching higher and higher. Just those columns are amazing. There are spiral stairways up to the towers. Apparently Joe went up those, but did not suggest we climb them. We would’ve known better anyway. What is the most amazing for me is the glasswork. It’s sort of divides by color into four areas. Where we entered was primarily blue, but towards the back of the basilica, it shifted to green. On the other side at the back, it was again green, but quickly changed to predominantly red. The colors are incredibly vivid. Apparently the blue represented the ocean or perhaps the water. The green definitely represented the forest. The red represented the blood of Christ... I think.

The center of the church where the alter is was as ornate as expected. What was interesting was that you could look through some windows at the sides of the altar dias and you would see that underneath was a chapel of some sort with wooden pews. In the main part of the church, the pews were just seats. Most of the floor space of the Bella Basilica was open for people to walk through. Debbie got a little driven crazy by how slowly the guide moved through. He really liked that Basilica.  I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere or any building that was more spectacular, or more beautiful. We left through the back door which again is this edifice of artistry.

The Basilica is. monument to Catholicism, to the Sacred Family, and to art itself. It was not a testament to ego or Gaudi though it turns out that all the models used on the exterior storytelling were people from Barcelona. In one case, the face of a saint, maybe Bartholomew, was the face of Gaudi. The model for the donkey was a local hoofer.

The whole place is quite a scene with a lot of souvenir shops behind it. We had already been in the one souvenir shop and it’s pretty incredible. Eventually, that building though will be torn down for another wing of the cathedral that goes in that will have four towers. 

I was trying to figure out how to describe the basilica and now I can say that I believe it with most spectacular and beautiful building I’ve ever been in.

We took. taxi back to the ship.

Again Barcelona is a very interesting modern city. There are a lot of motorcycles and a fair amount of auto traffic, but it wasn’t particularly congested. I would’ve liked to have seen some of those street lights and Christmas decorations on at night. We could’ve been there the night before, but we didn’t see it as that seemed impractical. 

City of Palma to see the pearl factory and Palma caves.
The city is in a large bay. Supposedly the Romans got here about 123 BC. About 900 AD, the Muslims got here. Later on the Christians got here. I would bet anything the Phoenicians were here before them all. It’s a beautiful island with vast farmland. There are some mountains, but mostly it looks like northern California. Apparently almonds are a big thing with very beautiful flowers in Spring. There are vineyards apparently. There’s all these stone buildings. Stone houses and such. Their ages are unguessable. There is massive cathedral inside the port city. The roads are real good. We were on a four-lane highway. The city is fairly modern. Basically the place is fairly wealthy. You can tell, I assume that’s largely about the agriculture. I guess there are four large cities on the island. Well this is Spain. He said that in the north there’s a lot of French.

We went to the pearl factory, which was interesting. Most of what they make and sell their are synthetic pearls. I didn’t know that synthetic pearls were real big thing. When we got into the other town, there was another pearl factory. So I’m guessing that’s just a local industry they dominate.  Very, very pretty jewelry. Debbie got a small bracelet.

We went on the caves. It’s a tourist thing. It’s a lot of stairs is down into a sinkhole to get to it. The caves themselves are about 1/3 of a mile long. They’re pretty easy to walk through and the concrete walkway is hatched so you don’t slip.  There’s a number of chambers with lighting in them that light up the stalagmites really well. Quite pretty in there. You do end up going down some fairly steep stairs. You can see that a path was cut below the level of the cave so you could walk. The caves were found in 1905 when the guy was looking for marble. Luckily there wasn’t much in the way of stairs going up again. Debbie had been starting to feel some claustrophobia, not too bad, but uncomfortable. We had some fries and water at the snack bar there, but now we’re on the bus back to the boat.

This is a truly beautiful island. It’s greener than northern California even though this is November. There’s a lot of windmills that I think he said were 17th century, maybe the 15th, most of them were for pumping water, but some were for grinding wheat.

Wow, that’s something exciting. An the bus took off, somebody took a pretty good fall.

The island has 1.5 million people on it apparently. It’s a modern European city. Again, the farmland goes on forever and just look beautiful. When the Romans are the Muslims or whoever got here to colonize it, must’ve been just blowing away at how much flat land there was to farm.

Ibiza is a smaller island than the last one we were on. We took a walk from the boat to the nearest shore, but didn’t take the shore boat or the city boat or city bus. We really didn’t know what was to see. The tours were extremely expensive. It does seem like an interesting place. There was a fair number of ferries that carried cars. I was wondering if this wasn’t something like Beverly Hills. There is supposed to be an area where you can walk along the beach and there are shops, but we didn’t know where it was. In any case we were told it was a 45 minute walk, which for us means at least an hour. It really didn’t make any sense so I got myself a big Starbucks coffee when we got back to the ship. Also, since we aren’t here at lunch very often, we went to Cagney's, which had a good lunch and until the very end of it, we were the only ones in the restaurant. Basically this is. ship day when we wanted to take it easily. Also, it was supposed to be warmer and clear but it’s overcast and probably 66 or 67°. Frankly, we’ve had incredible weather up to now on this trip so we can’t complain. Marissa sent us. picture of the other day of Ninja on the deck with light snow falling on him. He looked like the picture of dejection. The East Coast is getting some weather.
Well, our Internet connections aren’t very good, we have enough information to wonder and speculate what is coming from Trump administration. We will see.

People that took tours were not impressed.

Oh, we did open the white wine we picked up for Debbie in Rome. That was some truly fou; wine. We got her a glass of much better wine for dinner. One thing I did pick up there was some aloe vera lotion. I would say that it’s a major crop on this island. I want a nap and I know Debbie wants a nap. We leave here about 3:30. Tomorrow will be going in to where the Alhambra Castle is. That’s going to be a pretty long day, but it should be interesting. I hope I haven’t gained too much weight (right...). I don’t feel bad but I have all the symptoms of a pretty nasty cold. At least Debbie hasn’t caught it at all yet.

Commentary by guide...
Surrounded by mountains.
Subtropical, producing avacado, mango, papaya. Very profitable to sell in Northern Europe.
It used to be about sugar cane.
We saw some snow on the nearby mountains, but it is warm here now.
Phoenicians brought the orange tree.
They produce a lot of olive oil.
Arid as we head up the hills from the port. It seems about as arid as the Pasadena hills.
They are in a water situation, which has raised the price of olive oil.
Very modern hiways.
Greeks came, as well as Carthagenians. Rome basically took it from them and mostly just left the language. Northern peoples came after them. Then Muslims took over most of the Iberian Peninsula in a few years.
The Reconquista took a long time. Some Muslim words remain, as well as recipes. Architecture too.
The soil just doesn’t look good here (Apparently it is though...). There is a big reservoir above Motril. Some windmills also. Modern.
Sounds like Granada is the biggest city in Granada.
Grapes and wine started with the Phoenicians. Muslins changed to making raisins. Wine is considered medicinal.
Tappas is a small portion of fruit that is served with drinks… for many possible reasons. 
They might offer. small portion of ham as a religious test.
Lots of orchards.
Not so many churches visible.
About 250,000 people in Granada, with a very popular university.
A bit foggy. 
City looks like SoCal with lots of condos.
We are at Alhambra.

Who knew? Granada is basically taken from the word pomegranate. Pomegranates are the symbol of the city and you see. lot of variety of them in the shops. Though I didn’t see anyone selling pomegranate juice. I guess it’s just not that time.

Granada is about 60 miles inland from the port. We took a large euro bus up the hill above Motril. Very fascinating to see. There’s a very large reservoir alongside the highway. You can see the old road as well. To the right is the snow on the Sierra Nevada. I should’ve realized that referred to the white mountains. All through it is agriculture, including olive groves. There are a lot of suburbs. It would be really hard to distinguish much between them and what you see in San Diego area. There’s a fair number of windmills, the big new kind. When we got to Granada, you go downhill into a valley and there was a fog. I guess that’s a valley thing.

We were let off at the castle of Alhambra. It looks basically like a typical Morrish fortress. Pretty incredibly impressive. A fascinating thing through the castle and all of Granada that I saw was the stonework used for walkways and sidewalks. They used flat stones put on edge, very often to make patterns. Near the chapel in town they were used to make the Royal Crest.

The castle is pretty high up with. good view. What happened apparently was that when it became a possession of the Hapsburgs, the Emperor considered it not up to modern European standards. So he had them build a palace inside the Alhambra castle that was modern European design at the time. We didn’t try to go in that and the line was very long. There was a fair amount of stonework celebrating the Hapsburgs. One of their symbols with a crown on a globe that signified their worldwide empire.

Overall, Granada had a lot of trees and pretty good growth. It had a grass covering that apparently come up since the rain is about a month ago.

There was a steep road called the Aspian Way that we went to when we left the castle that progressed into town. It had stone walls and stone gutters along the sides, but the middle was basically sand that was very compacted. There was a lot of leaves so it could be a little slippery. It was truly a beautiful walk through... forest I guess. The only problem is it was long steep downhill. I was having trouble a little bit. Debbie was having a lot of trouble, partly because we were making no stops while going down this and I’m guessing it was about a half mile at least. We didn’t think this was a walking tour.  Later on, after a bunch of discussion and the statement that people said that this was advertised as a walking tour, we figured out that they probably merged two tours. It had been a problem earlier because there was 40 people in the group and at Alhambra, only groups of 30 maximum were allowed. The guide broke us up a bit into two groups. We separated out 10 people that actually spoke Spanish and sent them with another guide. Our guide was Kevin. He was very smart, knew his history and seemed like a really good guy. But we figure the reason there was 40 was because they had merged the two tours. When we saw this tour on the boat, it was not a walking tour. We would never have considered that this tour was listed as a 5 1/2 hour walking tour. We went through a stone arch into the town and there was some really interesting souvenir shops there that I would’ve liked to stop at including ones that I hope I can find again. That is there was some cards with a flamingo dancer on it that had her in a cloth dress. I think it would be really nice to send. Polly, Carol and Barb. We’ll see if I find it again because I couldn’t find it in Granada. We were still walking pretty fast downhill. We finally got into town and kept walking fairly fast. This is when Deb really had some trouble. We came to the chapel, which as Kevin pointed out is the spiritual center of Spain. It is where the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella is. It was not a place which allowed any photography of any kind.  This is a major cathedral packed very tightly in a city so it’s a little hard to see just how big the cathedral is. When you’re inside it it’s incredibly tall. In any case, we entered into this room and that had very interesting artwork, including of Ferdinand Isabella. We then proceeded into the church itself, or perhaps chapel. It was pretty darn big and this is a cathedral. To me it was a little weird because it looked so familiar. But then it was Francisc orders that went with the colonists to California. This reminded me so much of the older churches I’ve seen in downtown LA when I was a kid. A lot of the decoration was wood with gold veneer on it. A whole lot of it was about the Sacred Family. Very Catholic. Like many Catholic churches apparently, it had the large gate or fence across the middle with scenes of the crucifixion and Jesus life.

Past that was the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella. It actually was what looked like two large sarcophagus. Beautiful white stone with incredible carving. One had Ferdinand and Isabella. I think the other one was Philip and his wife (guess). It’s too bad I couldn’t take a picture because that stonework was as impressive as anything I’ve ever seen. Following the route, you go down a very steep set of steps to see the chamber underneath it where there are the remains in coffins. There are the four coffins of the adults and a small one that was apparently of an infant that died. Then you climb up again. very steep steps.

On each side of the church were smaller sub alters. Again, absolutely beautiful work. There was a statue of a Franciscan priest, which was when I started thinking about how similar this looked to LA. The main altar was ornate and impressive if you would expect of a wealthy king. As we left, there was another room with. great deal of art in it. A glass case held Ferdinand's sword and Isabella’s silver crown. Apparently Ferdinand's Crown is in the museum in Madrid, or wherever the capital is. Again, I noticed. painting with Michael the Archangel in it, and as I’ve seen before, he was very feminine. Figured that out.  There was probably 30 paintings. All were by masters and were scenes of Catholic history. Pretty neat.

We left the church and went through a few different alleyways to a square where Kevin suggested we get lunch and that we would meet back there at 5. While we were doing this, Debbie was trying to figure out how far he intended to walk in each leg. It was a little annoying, so we were supposed to be there for two hours maybe more. And we really didn’t know what we were gonna do with ourselves besides get lunch. Debbie got some information so she could contact him on WhatsApp if needed and got the location where we would meet the bus. He was going to take the group from that square to where the bus was, but we weren’t thrilled with the idea walking there, so we said we’d rather meet him there. That seemed OK.

The area around there was just amazing. I’ve read about this where you’re in marketplaces and how it works. Is the shops are deep but not very wide. There was everything imaginable local. As with the case, in all the stores around there, there is a huge Islamic influence. The patterns were very Islamic. We went into a store Artiste de Medina. Found some really interesting stuff, bought magnets and some fans and some coffee cups. A lot of beautiful stuff. It was a large tourist store. Most of them, as I say, you go down these walkways, not even alleyways, probably 60 inches wide. And there are these narrow stores that go in very deep. Many of them are connected so that three or four of the stores actually connected. There’s all these walkways. It’s a shoppers dream if you want to. I picked up a boomerang actually. There was lamps, oil lamps, possibly with genies in them. Lots of leather work and purses. I actually bought a belt, though the leather of the belt seems fairly light and I suspect it’s going to stretch. I need another belt, but it needs to be heavier than that.  I guess silk is a big thing around here and we saw a lot of interesting silk though I wouldn’t know what to do with it. 

We had lunch. Debbie got a spaghetti dish and something else with it. I had pork fillet that was definitely fried well. Very tasty and a very big meal. I had a glass of wine as well which cost all of four dollars. Prices here are great. Debbie mostly sat while I did do a quick reconnoiter of the shops around which I found absolutely fascinating and colorful. I use my walking app, MapMyWalk, to make sure I can get back. We hung out there, but Debbie was pretty uncomfortable and her upper back had gotten a little sore from the walk down the long hill into town, so we took it easy and then we decided to try to go to the bus stop.  She mapped it on Google maps and it was a little difficult to figure out how to use it. The streets are very small but the street signs are up on the sides of the walls about 15 feet up. It seemed like the walking symbol paralleled the actual path we were taking. It wasn’t too hard to make it there and it was shown as a seven minute walk. We got to the plaza we were told of. Mostly relaxed. There was a café called "Football", presumably meaning what we call soccor. I went in and got a coffee, practicing my few words of Spanish. He spoke plenty good English though. A very nice plaza. We had sent a text on WhatsApp to Kevin that we were there, which probably made him feel a lot better.  It’s where all the buses meet so there was a lot of groups there. We got together with our group and did get on the bus eventually. The trip back to the ship was quite uneventful. We were tired though.

Today we’re in Cadiz (port an hour from Seville). We are going to leave at about 11 for a short walk into town. We hope it’s a short walk. We’re going to see a flamenco show and then walk around the town a little bit and walk back to the ship. If it’s much of a walk, we will just take a taxi. Tonight we’re going to be at the French restaurant, so that should be fun.

Granad a is. neat city. modern European with lots of residential buildings. The businesses are there, traffic is not that bad, lots of motorcycles, very cosmopolitan people. Seems like a really really nice place. 

Seville is actually an hour further inland from the port of Cadiz. The people that went there said it was a wonderful place. I can believe it. Spain has been great.

That would be Wednesday that we were in Cadiz. It turns out that’s a peninsula. The old town is actually on the peninsula. The New Town is on the other side. If you buy a house there, you can modify the interior, but not the exterior. It’s another place where the Phoenicians got there then the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Moors, then eventually the Spanish, fighting with the French. 
We thought we were going to walk into town to the flamenco show, then we would walk around town a little bit and go back to the ship. It turned out we actually started out with a walking tour of the town. It had walkways between the houses that were like the size of the roads in Rome (maybe 9 feet wide), but instead of cars, this was all pedestrian traffic and some motorcycles. The shops were interesting though not quite as flamboyant as the ones in Granada. There are a lot of restaurants. Debbie didn’t have much trouble with the walking tour, it was pretty flat, but she would’ve been happy to skip it. Again, these buildings are not allowed to be changed on the exterior, a good tourist strategy. 

We finally went down a fairly narrow corridor type thing and went into a small bar with a stage of probably 12 feet by 12 feet. It seems like they said we can take all the pictures we want but not any video. Of course took some video. There was a guitarist, a younger gentleman. There was a middle-aged gentleman who was the vocalist. There was a lady, I’m guessing, 30, who is the main dancer. There was also a young man, I’ll guess 28, who also dance the flamingo, which is a lot less common. It was an extraordinary performance. It’s noted to be a very passionate dance, I’m not sure. I picked up on that as much as I might’ve. It was insanely athletic and dynamic. Some of the stamping was nuts, their legs must’ve hurt later on that day. At the same time, I know they give multiple performances. It was as dramatic as we had been told.

We then walked back through the town to the ship. We didn’t take the most direct route but at a point we change directions so it wasn’t the long route either. It’s a pretty neat town. Getting to the ship didn’t take that long. It was nice to take the afternoon off.

We have the dinner at the French restaurant that night. I had lobster Thermidor, which is basically Lobster Newburgh like I used to make with its butter sauce and whatever plus a little wine, which is not in the Newburgh. By the end of the Marquee au Chocolate dessert, I was past done.

Apparently “gib” means mountain and Alter was someone who conquered it at some point.

This tour started extremely early. We were on a bus that held 30 people, and it was full. There is a Roman wall there, but the land area has been expanded out into the water twice, so land now extends far beyond the Roman wall. That is some wall. Now, as a consequence of a war, Britain got deeded Gibraltar. The Spanish of requested it back a few times, but any referendum always overwhelmingly shows that they want to stay associated with Britain.

The bus took us to a cable car which was large enough to hold all of us. Going up the guide pointed out that the lights we could see to the south were actually in Africa. That was cool. What was not so cool was that we soon got into a fog which cut visibility down to the town and certainly to Africa, just to foggy gray. It was early and just a little chilly. It didn’t say that it was a lot of walking, but we went down from the cable car for a fair walk to get to Saint Michael’s Cave. This is one of the things we wanted to see. It really didn’t disappoint. It’s over 120 feet in all dimensions. They had quite a light show going with some music. There’s a large stage and a lot of seats. The guide said that there’s really not any auditoriums in the town so the cave with used for concerts, comedy shows, etc. The cable was only so big but the cave formations were very big with some huge stalagmites. The humidity was so high that after the warm walk it wasn’t that much fun. We did pick up a magnet in the souvenir store. We are supposed to be picked up by the bus there and taken down to the area where the monkeys live. Instead, we ended up walking down more. Initially, we found one monkey. But further down there was quite a few of them. I guess they max out at 40 pounds maybe. Saw a couple cute youngsters. We did get on the bus then and it took us up to a parking area. Not a big parking area. The idea was to walk what he said was 200 meters up a hill to the tunnels that had been dug for military purposes. A great deal of military construction was all through the mountain from history up until World War II. World War II showed the big expansion because they thought that would be the staging area for the invasion of Morocco. That never happened, but there was 34 miles of tunnels apparently.  I wouldn’t mind seeing that but we were a little bit tuckered for much more up and up and downhill walking. We took the bus down to the town, which had a lot of interesting features. The schools apparently have the same curriculum as in Britain. There are two high schools, one for the boys, one for the girls. There’s a Moorish Castle, a small one on the side of the mountain. The guide pointed out that there’s almost 0 crime rate, which isn’t really much of. surprise. Everyone knows each other. The bus parked at the airport and let us all off. We walked across the runway along with the whole lot of the locals, some on scooters someone bicycles.. guess that’s the main thorough affair. I dare say they block it off when there’s. plane coming. It gave a great view up at the large vertical face of the mountain. Unfortunately the top of the rock of Gibraltar is often in a fog because of cold Atlantic air warm Mediterranean war air. It’s pretty dramatic to see though there are some houses on the lower parts of the rock that can be sold to locals. If the person dies without an heir, then it returns to the state. Then it can only be used for non-residential purposes such as drug rehab. Also, there is a bird sanctuary there. Most of the rock is covered with a 15 foot tall chaparral, possibly oak. There are the remains of a stairway that went up at one place... and one time. There’s a lot of history and a lot of stories to it.

The boat left about 11. I heard some story about you could park there in the port for five hours for free. That may be why we had such an early tour and left early. We had dinner in the dining hall at Hudsons. It was a very good Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and some dressing. The dressing wasn’t great. There was a salmon tartare appetizer that I had that was so good that I got a second one. 

We had packed during the afternoon so we finished it up now. Our bags are outside the door. We are probably going to have to pick up a medium suitcase for some of our extra acquisitions. The main thing was to carefully pack the clock we got at the Gaudi House. Now let’s just hope we can get some sleep. Luckily the clocks get set back an hour, which may be a fair amount of help. Tomorrow will be Lisbon. 

They picked up our luggage the night before, but we actually had too much to pack, so I was carrying my backpack, my blue backpack, and a shopping bag with stuff in it. We went to the Local Bar about 8 o’clock and had a good breakfast there. It’s hard to believe all the perks we got on this trip by upgrading to a suite For only $400. Debbie likes to point out that when she heard that offer she didn’t wait to ask me what I thought. Our Butler‘s name was Gary and pretty much every night there were, candies or hors d’oeuvres. Regina seemed to clean our room about three times a day. Anytime we went in, the beds were made. We eventually left the ship and found our luggage in a huge room full of luggage. The perks helped us find it faster. We had to wait a while for our driver and I was concerned because he’s driving a Tesla. I didn’t think we would have enough room, but everything fit in it. He took us to the Lumen Hotel. Thi a is. really nice hotel, if you could figure out how the light switches work and don’t burn yourself in the shower.

We got sorted out some and laid down. We’re both pretty exhausted at this point, but neither one of us slept.

We went out in front and got picked up by Kevin in a Tuk Tuk. It was one that could hold four people very comfortably, but it was just the two of us in this trip. It was an electric vehicle. It’s sort of basically a 3 wheeled motorcycle with a cab on the back. We started out with Debbie in the middle and me in the back because it was more room. Our objectives while sight seeing included finding a bottle of cherry liquor and get a midsize piece of luggage to put all the overflow in. This is the four hour tour though. You can cover a lot of ground in that amount of time. And we did. There’s no question that neither one of us really knew where we were. He gave us a great deal of information 0n the history of Lisbon. The Phoenicians were here, I think the Greeks were here, the Romans were here definitely, the Moors were here definitely and is a fair amount of influence that’s visible. 

In about 1734 they built. very large aqueduct to bring water into the city. It was almost 300 feet tall. That was one of the few things that survived the 1755 black Friday earthquake. A lot of people were in church and died. It basically destroyed Lisbon. The churches apparently offered prayer, but one city leader, who has a lot of big statues now, said let’s dig in and get this place rebuilt. He laid out the streets somewhat parallel in the custom of the Greeks. 
"Sebastiao Jose de Carvalho. Melo, also known as the Marquis of Pombal, was responsible for rebuilding Lisbon after the earthquake. A statue of him in the center of a square in Lisbon commemorates his work."

There’s a lot of traffic circles and a lot of statues and a lot of really nice cafés and a lot of smaller stores. Is cobblestones and that’s OK until after a while, your flat surface becomes an undulating surface, one of the first things I noticed when I was getting banged around. After a little ways when we stopped. I moved to the middle seat. That was a much better ride. We went to cathedrals, we went to castles, we went everywhere. Again, Kevin gave us a great deal of history which again started after 1755 when the whole city basically was rebuilt. Often there were areas that were destroyed and rebuilt the same way quite intentionally.  Lisbon is hilly. Towards the end of the scheduled tour, Debbie said she wanted to go to certain places. We are running late, but along the river is a small castle or Fortress perhaps, that became used as a prison. Apparently people would be tortured there until used up, then later when the tide came up in the river, it would wash them away. Very spectacular building. I had heard quite a bi a about the river, but had no idea how big it was. I actually thought it was part of the bay. We also got to the monument to the explorers. It had 30 figures who in history were scientist and literary figures, and all the people that had led Portugal forward. ... More of those than military leaders. One thing about being built after 1755 is that the streets were pretty good layout and many were two-way highways. In the Tuk Tuk we went down a lot of single lane streets that in other cities would have been walking areas. A whole lot of the buildings have tile on the outside to reflect heat. It looks nice.  There was a lot of tile everywhere and it looks great. Ceramic tile street signs are a whole lot prettier than metal painted ones. One old part of town that had been restored had the very narrow walkways that seem a little small but very practical. In winter, the buildings radiate heat so the walkways are a little bit warmer. In summer, the sun can never really reach to the bottom so you’re always walking in shade.  What else did we find out? I couldn't possibly retain all that was said by Kevin so I probably missed most of it.

Again, we were going around Lisbon we went everywhere without really knowing where we were most of the time. We did go down the mandatory street with all the Louis Vuitton and expensive designer stores. An interesting thing though was a common pastry. Here is a small cup about 2 1/2 inches across with custard in it. I had had one already and it’s very good, we came to another one of these massive beautiful buildings and Kevin told us about that. The nuns in the monestary there (when it was a monestary) had used egg white to stiffen the cossacks of the priests, but always threw out the egg yolk. So one of them came up with the idea of turning them into this dessert they could sell. While they’re very common through the city, there is only one place at the original is made. So he took us there and bought some that we’re still hot. Apparently they’re always hot because they sell so fast. That was actually very, very interesting. I found out I gained weight did not like that part.

We eventually got back and walked up the street to a restaurant that was actually very good. We had a shrimp appetizer and a garlic and butter sauce. I had fried pork medallions that were quite good and Debbie had Seabass that had been recommended. When we walked in, they were just serving someone some sausage that smelled incredibly good. I almost got it, but it was chorizo so I didn’t want to try it at the time. I was pretty wined out so I had a beer. Dinner was really good.

We are both exhausted. So Debbie slept through the night with only one wake up. I slept like crap. The next day was going to be too soon Sinatra, for what was supposed to be about a six hour tour of the castles there. They were known as the painted castles. We hadn’t been anywhere outside of Lisbon city so far, so we figured that to be interesting.  

... If you must, you can jump to the last two paragraphs... but certainly read those. Most images are clickable for size. I usally just use my own images, but in some cases, I chose others to be able to do justice to the amazing places. The entire mountain, with three "castles" or "palaces", from different time periods and cultures, are set within wonderful cultural and biological gardens. They are mainly places where extremely rich people built to enjoy and entertain themselves. It's very nice.

The plan was to take an excursion to Sintra, north and west of Lisbon. There we could visit "The Moorish Castle", Pena Palace, the "Painted Castle", and the Palacia de Reguilera. I had no idea what this was about other than having seen pictures of a rather brightly colored castle and stories of the "upside down towers". Hmmm... Palacia de Reguilera seems to translate to "Palace of Joy"... and Sintra translates to "Bright Sun". It is considered something of a mystical place. It is a blend of striking natural landscape, ancient stone monuments, elaborate gardens, ancient magical forests, stunning castles and palaces, on a tall foggy mountain.

The last part of the visit, in the gardens of Palacia de Reguilera, was when it got most interesting.

There were eight of us in the van when we were picked up in the morning at our hotel. Four were from Germany. The guide, Nelson of Guia Spr Tours through Maria Ines, was a slender middle aged gent. I am grateful to him for a pretty darn interesting excursion.


There is so much story and symbolysm, both artistic and mystical, to this fountain, and he loved to tell us about it. The sea shells are very common icons in sea faring Portugal. Click on the image to size it.

Sintra itself is a fascinating European town, showing its age with worn, moss covered stone work that is generally unfamiliar in the New World. The main landmark is two tall conical towers... that were originally chimneys for a bakery. It is an interesting walk through narrow cobble stone streets, with some pretty stately buildings. The roofs are all red tile. There was a great bell tower. What I liked most perhaps was the characteristic tile work common to Portugal. It is a cultural craft, beautiful art work, and tiles reflect heat as well. In Lisbon I saw entire building walls covered in tile. Here there were many images made of multiple tiles. It was before Christmas and there were some decorations as well as a Christmas Market, that unfortunately was not open.

Basically, the mountain with the Moorish castle, the Pena Palace, the Palacia de Reguilera, and all the many gardens


Tile Image of Sentra. Notice the two chimneys that are basically the town landmarks. Click on the image to size it.


This is at the entrance to the School of Arts. In the lower tile work, you can see the Moorish Castle and the Pena Palace shown up on the hill. Click on the image to size it.

We did not stop at "The Moorish Castle". It was a military fortification for the Islamic presence in the region, and was probably constructed between the eighth and ninth centuries and later expanded after the Reconquista. It was higher on the hill and what we could see looked pretty amazing with long castle walls of stone. I cannot imagine the labor, both human and animal needed to do the stone work, and to bring building materials and supplies up the rather substantial mountain.

Most of the way up the hill is the Pena Palace, that apparently started as a sixteenth century monastery. Lightning, and then the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, occurring shortly afterwards, mostly reduced the monastery to ruins. In 1838, King consort Ferdinand II acquired all the land in the area and had it rebuilt, mostly in Romantic style, as a Summer Palace. It actually has many styles in parts, including Victorian and Edwardian styles. It's quite the a castle, but it was never meant for war. It is still used for State Events. The surroundings are beautifully forested, with trees from many continents. From the Castle, you can see the ocean about 6 miles away.


Pena Palace - Palácio Nacional da Pena, was basically a summer home. Click on the image to size it.

It's a lot cooler there in Summer than much of Portugal or many places in Europe, so a lot of royalty used to like spending time there in Summer.


Tiled Archway at Pena Palace. Notice the nautical theme so common to Portugal. Click on the image to size it.

To me, the most interesting part and why I went to the effort of writing this is the Palacia de Reguilera. Very loosely speaking it is a large garden. The main palace, Quinta da Regaleira, the Manor House (if I've got it right), is this beautiful building with slender Manueline-Gothic spires. Its stone walls are half hidden by the surrounding greenery. I'm pretty sure that it dates back to the sixteenth century. I toured the bottom floor and was reminded of Hearst Castle. I'm very sure "The Chief" William Randolf Hearst and Julia Morgan had visited there. Very beautiful in so many ways.


Palacia de Reguilera. Click on the image to size it.

They say it is an enchanted castle in an magical forest. No matter what, the gardens and forest would qualify as very beautiful, but the garden is full of art, grottos, tunnels, "upside down towers" and mystic symbolism. This was also the most fascinating part to the guide and he tried to convey to us what it was about. The garden was built at the very start of the 20th century. The architect was Luigi Manini. It is a bit like a mature, more expensive and thoughtful version of Parc Güell in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudí and there are some connections in the mysticism, especially the "underground waters" symbolized by the "iguana" in Parc Güell.  

The views from Quinta da Regaleira of the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace are better than the views from those two places.


A Beautiful Garden of Quinta da Regaleira. Click on the image to size it.

Quinta da Regaleira is famous for its unique blend of architectural styles, underground tunnels and esoteric symbolism. It has beautiful gardens in a gothic / sublime style with hidden paths grottos and underground passages. Nice cafe. House is completely over the top gothic style. There are whimsical toy castles... 40 feet or so tall. There is the completely over the top Gothic Chapel, but it was in the gardens that interested me.


Upside Down Tower. It symbolizes a descent into the depths of knowledge and self discovery. When you reach the bottom, you exit through a cave that represents the birth and emergence of knowledge. Click on the image to size it.

The owner of Quinta da Regaleira at the turn of the century and his architect were both Renaissance men. The were highly educated and cosmopolitan, but this was before World War I showed the power and wealth of science. Science was very new and limited then. An educated person of the time might know some science then, but they might also be very familiar with astrology, numerology, spiritualism and even alchemy. Throw in some Knights Templer for good luck. This was a time when many people saw the world as a place with the material world and the spiritual world as adjacent. The garden is a celebration of many beliefs of the time. For example, the Masonic symbols found throughout Quinta da Regaleira are believed to represent different aspects of Freemasonry and its teachings. These symbols include the compass, the square, the pentagram, and the all-seeing eye. There is the beautiful grotto you can walk into that represents the waters of the underworld. here are small paths through the garden, just inviting you to wander them. The Initiation Well, often called "the upside down tower", has 177 steps, as did the stair down to hell in Dante's story. There many sculptures and fountains, many with seashells or birds or lizards. There are ropes and knots, representing Portugal's nautical past. 


There are many sculptures like this in the gardens. Look at the detailed story it tells. Again you see the rope iconography and other symbols. Click on the image to size it.

It gets more interesting though, as our guide explained. The vast garden is about the emergence of ideas and understandings. The caves, as many things in the garden, represent more than just one thing, but one thing they do represent is birth, especially of enlightenment. The gardens are now popular and busy. They are really meant though to be seen alone with your thoughts, or maybe with a contemplative book, or maybe with the intoxicant of your choice. They are meant to inspire thought, but even more than that they are meant as a place where thoughts can be completed, and understandings emerge. Definitly one of the coolest places I've ever been! 

I highly recommend a 6 minute video about it. QUINTA DA REGALEIRA: A Mystic’s Paradise | Sintra, Portugal. Sintra is one of the most interesting places you could visit.


Throne of Quinta da Regaleira. Click on the image to size it.